Troop One of the Labrador eBook

“Naw, we’re safe enough now.”
Hank tipped the bottle to his lips, and handed it
to Bill. “The boss ain’t missed his
liquor neither, and there won’t be any to miss
pretty soon the way you’re pulin’ at it.”

“I don’t know’s I took any more’n
you did,” said Bill petulantly, corking the
bottle and returning it to the bag. “It
was a good move to play safe anyhow and hide the swag
until we made sure the boss wouldn’t go searching
through our stuff for it. I don’t know’s
he’d suspicion us any more’n the rest
of the crew, but he’d search everybody’s
stuff if the Captain had give him a tip.”

“You bet he would!” agreed Hank.
“We just played in luck right through.
They won’t blame us for that other job, will
they? They ain’t likely to go makin’
a search for that, be they?”

“Naw!” said Bill. “That other
feller, whatever his name is, has got ’em on
his trail for that. We ain’t in it.
They’ll never suspicion us for that. We
made a slick job of that.”

“Well, let’s beat it back,” said
Hank. “It’s snowin’ and it’s
goin’ to snow hard. The sooner we gets
back to camp the better we’ll be off.”

Bill swung the bag over his shoulder, when suddenly
he stopped and exclaimed:

“What’s that?”

Jimmy had sneezed, and again he sneezed.

“Some sneak in that there tree!” and Bill
with an oath dropped his bag and seized his rifle,
which he had leaned against the tree in which Jimmy
was perched. “I’ll put a bullet up
there! That’ll settle that feller, whoever
he is!”

CHAPTER XIV

THE TWO DESPERADOS

“Don’t shoot, sir! It’s just
me!” Jamie piped in terror from the tree.

“It’s only a kid!” Bill swore an
oath of disgust and lowered his rifle. “You
git down out’n that tree! Git down quicker’n
lightnin’, too!”

“I’m comin’, sir!” came Jamie’s
frightened voice from the tree-top.

Jamie lost no time in descending from his perch and
in a moment stood trembling before his captors.
It was quite dark now and snowing hard, and to the
frightened little lad the two big lumbermen loomed
up like giants.

“What you doin’ here?” demanded
Bill with an oath as he seized Jamie’s arm with
a grip that made the lad wince.

“I were—­I were huntin’ for
the cache,” confessed Jamie.

“Goin’ to steal our cache, was ye?
Well, we’ll teach you to leave other folkses
things be!” The man gave Jamie a savage shake.
“Tryin’ to steal our cache, eh? Who
set you on to it? That’s what I want to
know! Who set you on to stealin’ it, now?”

“I weren’t goin’ to steal un, sir,”
chattered Jamie, horrified at the implication that
he was a thief.